This Twitter thread was recently posted to reddit. You decide whether it's insightful, depressing, or both. Excerpts (highlights are mine):
Modern life consists of *tasks*. A never-ending series of clearly-defined simple-to-achieve Things. To. Do.
Not problems to solve, questions to answer, ideas to have, dances to learn, or universes to imagine.
Tasks. To complete.
It's not simple to pay a bill. It's not simple to call a support line. It's not simple to mail something to something. It's not simple to do any of the billion simple things we are each expected to do every day.
And if you have ADHD, there is no reward. Only lack of punishment.
Think about that. ADHD people who heal their trauma and their relationship to panic and anxiety and shame *suddenly find themselves unable to do their jobs or focus on their responsibilities*. Why?
Because fear was all that was motivating them. They have to relearn how to want.
This part is, for me at least, the most uplifting:
Let's go back to that trail of half-finished art projects. Do you know why you didn't finish them?
Because there's nothing more there for you to learn.
That's it. Why would you finish them?
Your projects are your way of asking the universe a question, and then digging and digging and digging until the universe answers.
You are motivated by curiosity, and that is a blessed gift, not a source of shame. Your unfinished work is the testament to your growth.
Those aren't abandoned projects -- those are the remaining scaffolds from the the space ships that they launched.
It was never about finishing the thing. Forgive yourself for that.
That’s true. Also the modern world is incredibly hostile to diversity of minds. Everyone is just supposed to have the same kind of life from birth to death.
Do well in school by getting good grades for testing, then get a 9-5 job, etc. Dress mostly the same as everyone, have roughly the same habits, do mostly the same stuff as everyone else.
The entire concept of modern school is particularly depressing to me. So few people do well in that kind of environment of sitting in a chair since early morning, listening, memorizing and getting tested, never mind the collective that is often full of assholes and bullies, while the adults never have time. How is one supposed to learn anything that way? How is it that this terrible system somehow is the norm?
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